


Leavin’ the Back Door Open ‘Til You Come Back

by SweetLateJuliet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-13 05:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1214614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetLateJuliet/pseuds/SweetLateJuliet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“221B Baker Street” is widely synonymous with “Sherlock Holmes.” So in addition to being a physical place, maybe *this* 221B is a metaphor for *this* Sherlock. And mayyybe it suggests that Operation Johnlock is indeed go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leavin’ the Back Door Open ‘Til You Come Back

A lot has been written about the confusing layout of this incarnation of 221B Baker Street. Good summaries:

-Sherlockology: [The Mystery of the 221 Floor Plan](http://sherlockology.tumblr.com/post/19289963508/221floorplan)   
-folha5eca: [Layouts for 221B Baker Street](http://folha5eca.livejournal.com/733.html)

In particular:

-The front door is labeled 221B, although it “should” be simply 221.   
-Neither of the doors into Sherlock and John’s flat are “exterior” doors (no Yale locks).   
-There sure are a lot of doors in that flat - two entrances to every room we can see or deduce (living room, kitchen, Sherlock’s room, the loo).   
-The location of Sherlock’s bedroom is problematic in relation to the exterior windows in the kitchen and the staircase landing.   
-We’ve never seen John’s room.

**It’s possible that no one on the production team noticed or cared that the flat’s layout was so improbable. Humor me while I examine another option.**

If we take Mycroft/Gatiss at his word that the universe is rarely so lazy as to create coincidences, perhaps the flat’s ambiguity is intentional. After all, “221B Baker Street” is widely synonymous with “Sherlock Holmes.” So in addition to being a physical place, maybe  _this_ 221B is a metaphor for  _this_ Sherlock.

**Living room: His head**

Most of the scenes at the flat take place in the living room. It’s where Sherlock does most of his thinking, where he sees clients, and where he constructs his deduction wall. In TGG, Moriarty explodes into Sherlock’s deductive consciousness with an actual explosion into the living room.

So much happens in the living room, and so much of Sherlock’s energy is spent on detecting, that I think this comparison is most useful in relation to the rooms, and parts of Sherlock, that we don’t see as much.

**Kitchen: His heart**

In series 1 and 2, and in series 3 so far, Sherlock spends little time in the kitchen, and if he’s there it’s usually for an experiment. The table is frequently littered with his equipment.

Mrs Hudson makes herself at home in this kitchen, tidying or making tea. Caring.

We don’t see John in the kitchen much, but we do know he does the shopping - he supplies the kitchen. In TBB, he frets over the damage to the kitchen table caused by the swordsman, and he searches the room for something to offer Sarah Sawyer with little success. John and Sarah plan to eat there (a takeaway) but never get that far. The next morning, after John’s been rescued from the Chinese circus, Sherlock pours him tea at the kitchen table.

In ASiB, John and Mrs Hudson are in the kitchen when they discuss Sherlock’s unknown relationship history, and in TSoT, Mary and John retire to the kitchen as they scheme to protect Sherlock’s heart during their wedding planning.

During the ASiP drugs bust, Donovan and Anderson search the kitchen for evidence of wrongdoing, while Lestrade waits out the search in the living room.

If the kitchen is popularly understood as “the heart of the home,” what might we deduce about the heart of this Holmes? It is little used, directed toward science, easily colonized by Mrs Hudson, and thanklessly maintained and protected by John. Donovan and Anderson want to know what’s inside and initially suspect the worst; Lestrade doesn’t go there. (And, tenuously, Molly’s been to the flat but we’ve never seen her in the kitchen.)

As Sherlock realizes the depth of his feeling for John in TSoT, we see correspondingly more of this room.

Sherlock and John have their best man/best friend conversation in the kitchen. This is both the most nakedly, reciprocally sincere we’ve seen them with each other, and the first time we’ve seen them have any sustained interaction in this room.

Later we see that Sherlock tried to guess John’s middle name while they were in the kitchen together (and even when Sherlock was in the kitchen and John in the bathroom). To stretch the flat metaphor, we could say it’s a puzzle that’s close to Sherlock’s heart.

**Bedroom: His sexuality**

We first and chiefly see Sherlock’s bedroom in ASiB, an episode that explicitly concerns itself with sexuality. Sherlock ends up in bed after Irene drugs him and John brings him home. John tucks him in and says he’ll be next door if Sherlock needs him; Sherlock wonders aloud why he would (with, I think, an implied “here/now”), and John says “No reason at all.” Irene later slips in and sleeps alone in Sherlock’s bed.

Twice Sherlock gets clothes from his bedroom and alludes to them as battle dress: before he visits Irene (ASiB), and when he gets dressed for John’s wedding (TSoT).

In TEH, Sherlock talks on the phone with Mycroft in his bedroom, and John comes to fetch him there.

If the flat is a metaphorical Sherlock, his bedroom could then represent his sexuality. The room’s problematic location becomes a physical representation of Sherlock’s uncertainty in this area. He’s invited no one in. John cares for Sherlock there and excuses himself when his presence is confusing, while Irene sneaks in and borrows the space. Sherlock keeps in it the necessary costumes to protect himself from the vulnerability it creates. And, tantalizingly (if thinly), the brief scene in TEH might indicate that Sherlock is becoming more comfortable being seen in this space, and John is becoming more comfortable with visiting it.

The fact that we’ve never seen John’s bedroom could mean that John’s sexuality is either entirely opaque to Sherlock, or that Sherlock believes it doesn’t exist in 221B (i.e., in the same space as his own).

**Doors: His boundaries**

If this 221B is a metaphor for this Sherlock, it makes sense to label the exterior door “221B.” This is the boundary between things in Sherlock’s life and things beyond them. Mrs Hudson is well-integrated into home and Holmes, so she lives behind that exterior door (though in her own demarcated space, 221A). Moriarty can breach that boundary unseen, as when he leaves Carl Powers’ trainers in 221C.

In ASiP, John arrives at 221B for the first time and knocks. Sherlock arrives almost immediately thereafter, but the men stand on the pavement discussing Mrs Hudson until she opens the door - even though we’re shortly to learn that Sherlock has already moved his things in and must certainly have a key. Mrs Hudson, who ships Johnlock at least as hard as you, facilitates John’s entry into Sherlock’s flat, life, and, she hopes, heart. (When she goes upstairs with the boys the first time and sees the kitchen, she says, “Oh, Sherlock. The mess you’ve made,” and immediately starts tidying up. This is shortly after she’s insinuated that they mightn’t need the second bedroom and John has said  of course they will.)

The fact that every room has two doors suggests, to me, possibilities and porous boundaries. The main entry into Sherlock’s flat, the living room door (i.e., through his intelligence), is complemented by an unexpected direct entry into his kitchen (i.e., through his heart), which is not shown onscreen when the two men first enter the flat. Sherlock’s ambiguously located bedroom has two entrances - the bedroom door and through the en suite (which also opens directly into the kitchen) - and Irene uses a third, the window. I won’t speculate that these mean specific things, but it seems significant that although this room is buried deep in the flat there are a lot of ways to access it.

To end at the beginning, this is the moment that niggled at me until it bloomed until this whole piece, Mrs Hudson bringing up Sherlock’s tea on the morning of John’s wedding:

The door to the kitchen is open. The door to the living room isn’t. Mrs Hudson’s hands are full, but she doesn’t even glance at the kitchen; she opens the living room door instead. The distance to John’s chair (where she eventually sets the tea tray) from the landing is approximately equal by either route, so why didn’t she take the easier route?

I think it’s because Sherlock’s kitchen - the heart, the place for John - is off limits to her at this moment. That door isn’t open for her; it’s open so John can come back, even if the “front”/living room door is now closed of necessity. (I’ve certainly read a lot of angsty fic where Sherlock leaves the door open until John comes back.)

And John _used_ that open door. When he came to ask Sherlock to be his best man, Sherlock was in the kitchen and John walked right in through that door.

Whether they’ll make it through the door to the ambiguously located bedroom remains to be seen. For  _this_ 221B and  _this_ Sherlock, my fingers are crossed.


End file.
